Pontiac teams with Lifetime on product vignettes

Shorts depict women's use of G6 in their everyday lives

Pontiac is pairing traditional ads on the Lifetime cable TV network with vignettes produced by the female-oriented channel that depict women's use of Pontiac vehicles.

Pontiac calls the four 30-second vignettes a nontraditional way to appeal to female consumers.

Lifetime says it designed the vignettes to attract more advertising dollars from the General Motors division.

Pontiac advertising manager Mary Kubitskey predicts Lifetime viewers "will notice the vignette more so than they would a traditional ad."

"The whole nontraditional area is where Pontiac is committed in the future," Kubitskey says. "I'll trade traditional media dollars for more effective nontraditional opportunities anytime."

She declined to say how much Pontiac is spending on the effort.

The vignettes will air through the summer.

Lynn Picard, general manager of Lifetime Television, says women are exerting more influence over vehicle purchases.

Picard calls the collaboration with Pontiac "a great opportunity for us."

"Money was out there to be had," she says. "By coming up with this idea and this partnership, we were able to get a bigger share of (Pontiac's) money."

Dual brands

The Lifetime vignettes run back-to-back with traditional Pontiac spots. They carry both Pontiac and Lifetime branding.

Kubitskey says she expects the combination to generate greater viewer recall than a 30-second spot alone.

"I've purchased a little less than a minute's worth of time, but I think I've gotten three minutes' value," she says.

The Lifetime project began with a request from Mike Rosen, senior vice president of GM Mediaworks, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies advertising conglomerate. Mediaworks buys advertising for GM.

Rosen "came to us with the goal of introducing the personality of the Pontiac G6 and the SV6" to Lifetime viewers," says Mike Alvarez, vice president of Lifetime Partnerships.

Each vignette portrays "a moment in women's lives in and around their Pontiacs," Alvarez says.

Appealing to women

To promote the G6 to female buyers, Pontiac

Aired 30-second short stories on the Lifetime cable network, which targets female viewers.

Sponsored the "Cinematherapy" movie anthology in November on the WE: Women's Entertainment cable network.

Gave away 276 G6 cars in September on "The Oprah Winfrey Show," whose audience is mostly women.

Special moments

"So many of these special moments in women's lives take place around their car," he says. "So the creative (content) doesn't simply have the Pontiac as a backdrop, but the car is physically and emotionally part of the story."

Kubitskey says Pontiac and its ad agency, Chemistri of Troy, Mich., worked closely with Lifetime on the vignettes.

"It wasn't like the vignette is done and for this much money we'll put your product in," she says.

"(Lifetime) enabled us to meet with the creators before the deal was done and actually influence what the creative was."

One vignette shows two women bringing suntan lotion and a beach ball to their G6, which has a large sunroof.

"I doubt there's a woman who doesn't consider the effect of tanning when you're driving," Kubitskey says. "It's a nice lifestyle moment that I think the viewers will identify with."

Another vignette promotes the G6's remote ignition system. A woman carries a crying baby, who is soothed by the sound of the G6's engine.

Picard calls nontraditional ads "the big buzz of the industry."

"They're truly almost impossible to pull off because there are so many people involved to make decisions and you run out of time or you can't get it through the system," she says.

Picard adds that the partnership with Pontiac "was quick, almost easy, because everybody got it right away and we had our end goal in mind."